Many fishing techniques employ the use of natural bait, such as living or dead animals including minnows, worms, leeches, shrimp, crawfish or any other bait. A number of containers or holders for natural fishing bait are known, many of which generally involve some form of container that is capable of holding fishing bait within as well as for holding water within in some cases, all for use in containing and transporting bait. Some known containers involve insulating means for maintaining held bait at or near a target temperature, in order to maintain bait freshness.
Among the problems encountered with bait holders known in the art is that users are required to place their fingers or some other means into the water in which the bait is held in order to remove individual animals or pieces of bait before use. This process can be cold, unsanitary, unpleasant for users that have an aversion to water in which bait has been held, and potentially wasteful in circumstances where the water becomes cloudy or discoloured and thus some pieces of bait may be missed and eventually lost by the user. Additionally, some of these containers have a fairly large volume of space which makes it difficult to capture the bait (either with hands or with an apparatus).
An additional problem encountered with known bait holders is that water in such holders, in which the bait is held, may eventually become stale with the passage of time. Such stale water may be lacking in oxygen, may be contaminated with waste, and may deviate from a target temperature. In some cases, the staleness of the water may result in the undesired death of bait animals before use. Additionally, the staleness of the water may act to increase the unpleasant or unsanitary nature of removing the bait therefrom by a user.
A further additional problem encountered with known fishing bait holders is difficulty encountered by users when attempting to gain access to held bait with only one hand. Live bait animals have a tendency to squirm or swim away from the user's hand, or, in the case of bait such as crawfish, to bite or pinch, and potentially injure the user. Further, the use of any tools to attempt to isolate or “catch” the held bait is made difficult during one-handed operation, for example while the user's other hand operates a fishing boat or other fishing equipment such as a fishing rod or pole.
Yet an additional problem encountered with known fishing bait holders is that they may be unstable and prone to falling over and spilling their contents. This may be particularly problematic in circumstances where the bait holders are subject to physical instability, for example on board a fishing boat.
Yet another problem is that a large bait container for sharing bait between two fishermen fishing from the same boat may be awkward to access for both fishermen.